'Ireland' country name should be changed to 'Republic of Ireland'

[vj2mh9zv2k-dev]

The country name for the Republic of the Ireland is currently listed as simply 'Ireland'. Given that 'Ireland' is also used to refer to the greater geographical island in which the country is located, it would be more precise to change the country name on this card to 'Republic of Ireland'

[aplaice]

Thanks for raising an issue, but I think that given that we don't have a note for the island, we don't need a disambiguator.

I think that this is supported by our Contributing guidelines:

If the title of the Wikipedia article contains a parenthetical portion for disambiguation purposes

The Wikipedia article name of the country is Republic of Ireland, but I believe the "Republic of" part is for disambiguation purposes. (It's not literally in parentheses, but IMO it is parenthetical.)

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OTOH maybe we should add "Also known as the Republic of Ireland." as the country info, since the "Republic of" name isn't just the formal/official name (as is frequently the case), but is frequently used in common language, presumably to disambiguate from Northern Ireland and (as you note) the island itself (and possibly also to stress freedom from the British monarchy).

For instance, compare:

Ireland (Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] ⓘ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann),is a country in Northwestern Europe.

France, officially the French Republic

Italy, officially the Italian Republic

("officially" vs. "also known as"). (France and Italy were my first two random choices.)

I'm very mildly against adding this, though, since (without further context) it'd be confusing why here we have "Republic of", but not for the many other cases. It's also not distinct, such that without the country info a learner would not be able to recognise the alternative name (cf. Myanmar/Also known as Burma or Gulf of California/Also known as the Sea of Cortez).

[axelboc]

Interesting case but I agree with your assessment @aplaice — I'm also mildly opposed to adding "Republic of". This would indeed open a can of works with other similar cases.

I'm less opposed to adding "also known as Republic of Ireland", though, because of how common the term is (contrary to, say, the "French Republic").

[ukanuk]

Simplest answer is copy the Wikipedia article. Let discussions take place on the Wikipedia pages, not here--anyone wanting a change should convince Wikipedia that the change is necessary. They should following the guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles. That also makes it easier for automated verification of data as those tools continue being developed.

Ie if @aplaice and @axelboc think it should be just Ireland, then they should propose updating the Wikipedia articles to "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (country)".

It doesn't mean all names immediately change to the long-form official name -- for example Wikipedia says it's China, not People's Republic of China.

[axelboc]

The guideline to follow the title of the Wikipedia article tries to avoid debates on "most commonly used" names.

Reading the Wikipedia community's decision on the use of Ireland and Republic of Ireland, it seems this particular case is more about disambiguation (with the island of Ireland) than most commonly used name. The fact that the first sentence of the Republic of Ireland article starts with the name Ireland confirms that the latter is the most commonly used name.

As @aplaice mentioned, we do not currently have a card for the island of Ireland, and there's no plan to add one that I can recall (it would add little value in my opinion).

Use "Ireland" for the state except where the island of Ireland or Northern Ireland is being covered in the same context.

One could argue that Wikipedia is also recommending to use Republic of Ireland to disambiguate with Northern Ireland, but this point is counteracted by the one that follows:

An exception is where the state forms a major component of the topic (e.g. on articles relating to states, politics or governance) where "Ireland" should be preferred

[aplaice]

Simplest answer is copy the Wikipedia article.

As @axelboc suggests that's approximately what we do. (I agree with everything he's written, here.)

The key problem is that (as the "Wikipedia article titles" article discusses) Wikipedia doesn't always disambiguate just in the form X (Y) (or X, Y), so we can't just copy the article name and drop everything that's in parentheses (or after a comma). For another example in this deck (in English), see Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which (IMO correctly - I believe we discussed this at the time) we have as just Bougainville.

"Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (country)"

IMO that would be a strictly worse disambiguation than what Wikipedia currently has, because Northern Ireland is also sometimes termed a country. (Obviously, it's Northern Ireland, so the added confusion would be slight, but "Republic of" completely avoids the issue.)